BY MICHAEL THOMPSON
Rudis Sylva’ s unconventional Harmonious Oscillator meshes balance teeth to counteract gravity’ s pull.
You don’ t need a loupe to see that the Rudis Sylva RS 16 is not powered by a conventional movement. At first glance the device with two balances may appear to be a double tourbillon. A more horologically fluent observer might dub it a carrousel, assuming that the entire escapement rotates. Both guesses, however, would be incorrect. Rudis Sylva, the atelier-sized independent watchmaking company celebrating its tenth year in 2016, has created its own movement for the RS 16 that, while sharing a few aspects with a tourbillon or carrousel, is neither.
Called the Harmonious Oscillator, the caliber operates with dual balances mounted on a rotating cage that completes a full revolution in 60 seconds, like many tourbillons.
But where the real ingenuity lies is in the interplay of the twin balance wheels themselves. While only one receives the impulses from the sole escape wheel, the other acts almost as counterweight to average out the timing performance that otherwise might be affected by the pull of gravity and friction. While one balance / hair spring is wound taught during the oscillating cycle, the other is fully expanding. This dance creates an instant and ongoing average timing of the pair.
And look more closely: those balance wheels— not just the hairsprings – are physically connected. Equally odd are the
2017 | WRISTWATCH 39